The past few days I have been talking about different chemotherapy drugs, but I realized I haven’t actually explained what I mean when I say chemotherapy. As you can probably tell, this is not a well laid out course in cancer; this is just me explaining things as I go, so here we go…
Chemotherapy is a bucket term for any medication we give to a cancer patient with the intent and expectation that the medicine will kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy comes in many forms. It can be oral (liquid or pills/capsules), IV, or injected into the spinal fluid during a lumbar puncture (spinal tap). Sometimes the drugs are commonly used for other diseases, as is the case for steroids, but when used in the right manner they can be potent chemotherapy drugs against leukemia and lymphoma. Most of the chemotherapy we use for pediatrics is non-specific, meaning that it targets dividing cells. Cancer cells are rapidly dividing, thus they get hit to a harder degree than other cells, but the normal cells in the body are also affected and that is the main reason there are so many side effects seen with chemotherapy.
One misconception of chemotherapy is that it will be harder on children than it is on adults. Children are very resilient in spirit and in body. Their bodies are young and don’t have decades of damage like an adult. If you have ever broken a bone as a child versus as an adult, you can see where I am going with this. Children’s bones generally heal up pretty fast after a break and heal without any issues. An 80 year old who has the same broken bone will have a more difficult time healing and recovering from the same injury. Additionally, most children generally don’t have any other pre-existing conditions that would limit their ability to take full doses of the medications such as kidney or heart disease. Lastly, while I wouldn’t say I am the most well versed person/physician in the details of mind-body connection on recovery, I do know that the undeniable energy, enthusiasm, and positivism of these kids and teenagers has to play some role. These things, along with the biology of the tumors, have helped us make great strides in achieving cures for the majority of our children, but unfortunately the price is high and most of those children will develop long term complications from their treatments. We hope that as the newer drugs are filtering in such as such as biologics (antibodies), cellular therapies (engineered T-cells) and other drugs that modulate the immune system that we can achieve safer, less toxic cures.
#morethanfour #ChildhoodCancer365
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